Mirroring the ExpressPCB print out

ExpressPCB is a free and easy to learn PCB drawing cad software for hobbyist, many simple circuit application do not required complicated software such as protel PCB, primarily because numerical control automation make use of gerber file is not required.

But the problem for many user that want to make their own simple PCB is that they need a mirror print out to properly done with iron on transfer or photo resist, the printed side need to be in contact with the circuit board to achieve the best result, especially when using a transparency as photo resist, closer contact possible will make fine line as there are very limited gap for scattered light beam.

The print out can in fact be mirrored by printer setting if you do have one of this option in your printer preference. But if you don't have one, you can make use of the Windows XPS Document Writer, I found out that it was pretty easy to mirror XML drawing script. It describe exactly the pattern of the print out by script not pixel, up to capability of 600dpi.

1. Print the layer you want out by choosing Windows XPS Document Writer as your printer, mind the paper size you choose, A4 is by default, this must be the same as your printer setting for paper size.

2. Rename the print out from .XPS to .zip

3. Extract all file, in the extracted folder look for file 1.fpage in directory drive:\your extracted folder name\Documents\1\Pages\1.fpage

4. Mirror all the value of x coordinate in the file, that will mirror the entire print out. Example:

FixedPage Width="816" Height="1056".....
Path Data="F1 M 302.4,436.8 L 513.6,436.8 513.6,619.2 302.4,619.2 z"  Fill="#ff000000" /

The path data describe a filled rectangle, 302.4, 436.8 is coordinate as (x,y), just modify (can be done with computer program) all x such that:

newX = Width - oldX

The scripts will look like this after modified:
Path Data="F1 M 513.6,436.8 L 302.8,436.8 302.8,619.2 513.6,619.2 z"  Fill="#ff000000" /

Basically XML drawing script use to describe those simple image is just line and rectangle, round pad is describe as a line in revolution, all it need is just coordinate information to describe where to draw the item.

5. Rezip the extracted folder with modified contain back to .zip and rename it back to .xps, I found out that rezip using winzip won't work, right click add a new zip file and drag everything into the zip file do work very well indeed.

6.Open the modified .xps file with xps viewer or internet explorer, at the menu click print and you will have a mirrored image print out.

Alternatively this may also work with Microsoft Word image writer, but the procedure may be different or easier.

User Comments

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Hydrofuel

I come across with some article about the title today, something regarding Malaysian claim have design some device that save fuel for a car!

I never use it before, so this article is just for a purpose of expressing my thoughts, not to critisize or praise it.

Firstly, why we need this system? Because the oxigen concentration in the air, is about 1/5 in ratio, this is far more than enough for a car at lo speed. But at high speed, the petrol intake may be more than the amount of oxigen it can be reacted(burned) with, therefore result in imcomplete combustion.

Of course a car can be fine turned to allow it carbureter or fuel injection system or whatever to limit the amount of maximum petrol intake, so at full pedal, the amount of air mixed with petrol, is in perfect ratio to conduct complete combustion. But that is an ideal case, in real life that seem imposible due to how the mixture mix up and their condition, there are some randomize activity in the particle due to its size that prevent complete combustion in short period. Therefore, we can always expect some carbon or carbon monoxide produced at the exhaust.

Please note that I am not expert in this matter, therefore I know very little. If we can use some electricity to split the water and get some oxigen from it, we should be able to increase the oxigen density of air intake so that we can fully utilize the potential of the petrol, if the fuel is fully burned, it will give more output. In ideal case, if we can put in pure oxigen into the engine block, it will be excellent. But in real life, the cost of put in pure oxigen into a car is far too higher than the petrol you can actually save, this is not pratical to be applied in automotive industry.

Pure oxigen will not only give full combustion, but it also give speed! The speed of the petrol burn! Expanding the volume of gas mixture in short period, will result in largest force being produced acording to the Newton second law. Because the burned mixture particle expand at higher acceleration. That is similar to gun catton explosive, people damp catton into liquid oxigen, it can become explosive! It burn too fast untill explosion can occur! Therefore the engine block must be design to hold this kind of force, otherwise one is actually making a bomb.

But also note that the inertial force will limit how fast the engine can response to the explosion force! Every car have a most efficient cycling frequency that can give you higher efficiency, beyond that point, it simply use more petrol for same kilometer. And it varying with age. Therefore maintain the RPM of a car is also a good way to save petrol. The sweet spot is usually judged by experiences especially for those car with fuel per km meter!

Therefore, it required some sort of control, that control the rate of the oxigen being produced, the oxigen should be produced when the car is under high speed such as on a high way. So it do not utilize battery power when the car is under lo speed. I expect this kind of system is effective. But just theoritically. The only problem in this kind of system is the cost per liter oxigen you pay for. For example if you pay RM0.90 for oxigen but you get extra kilometer that worth RM1, it is consider you earn RM0.10.

But if you only use less than RM50 petrol per month, and you install a system that cost few thousands which only last you for let say 3 years, this is absolutely undesirable, paying extra for nothing. But if you use few hundreds RM petrol each month, this device may be useful. Consider you drive in high way, not in city.

In a city, it is better to use a hybrid car, cause electric motor is more energy effective at start moving a car. In a city, always car jammed, one moving and stop frequently, a electric petrol hybrid car will save you some petrol. But sometime this kind of not so well established rules is not always right, consider the cost of battery replacement corespond to the wear and tear and the initial cost of purchase, there are trade off point where petrol car is actually save more money for someone. You must use the car at certain kilometer, then you earn the benefit. Besides, in Malaysia, do not park a hybrid car under sky, the radiation from sun may easilly kill the battery inside faster due to heating. Those battery can not be expected cheap, it is specially built, limited edition!

Ok, after so many talking, there are nothing related to hydrofuel, I apologise for that. I believe they try to put in both hydrogen and oxigen into the air intake of the car. I doubt if this is a scientific way to do it correctly. This thing may be good, if you like to play with car, but, burning hydrogen with oxigen together will produce water right? That is not a good idea for engine block, does it speed up the rate of the component inside the engine block become rusted? I am not sure if an engine block and piston is make of stainless steel, but I guess that is imposible. Besides, even stainless steel can become rusted under hot environment! Saving few hundreds or even thousands a years and result in damaging a few ten thousands car is just not worth it sometime!

Hybrid battery architecture

Having long time didn't update this blog, today I will sharing some interesting story in battery recell. Hopefully this topic is not too bored to whoever that may read this.

Any one in the field of li-ion battery pack for long enough, will notice that there are 2 cells (2s), 3 cells(3s), 4 cells(4s), 6 cells(3s2p, 2s3p), 9 cells(3s3p), 12cells(3s4p, 4s3p) battery pack, is there any possible that we could have 5cells, 7 cells, 10 cells, 11 cells? 's' mean series, 'p' mean parellel.

By parellel up cell, one can expect to get more power surge from the cell, it simply mean more current can be supplied by the cells. By series it up, it simply mean more voltage. It is not very pratical to assemble 6 cell in series, it will produce up to 4.2x6=25.2V from the battery pack, which is way too high for high current flow power mosfet to operate at greatest efficiency, or there will be some compromise at the filter side of PWM.

Lenovo is the very first company that adopt 7 cell battery, manufacture by OEM of Sanyo, many people have no sense of what is OEM, OEM mean original equipment manufacturer, it simply mean Lenovo make an custom order from Sanyo, other manufacturer that clone the battery thus can not be called OEM, cause Lenove didn't make an order from them.

I have no idea how they call this type of battery pack, but I call it "hybrid battery archetecture". It is basically 2 pieces of battery of 3 cells and 4 cells combine in one. There are three reasons I can think of why they must do this.

1. There are only room for 7 cells left for particular model (this is very unlikely).
2. The bussiness machine company do not want other clone battery company follow their design, 6 cells design is easilly duplicated, 7 cell is harder and cost is higher (please note that the protection board use extra component(higher cost), it is 2 battery in one, remember?) What make it so dificuit to other clone manufacturer is that the two battery automatically shift at certain preset voltage level, from one to another. This reasons is very close to be truth, but also not very likely.
3. This battery is best in cell balancing performance. In other word, the controller board will balance the cell in series better as too many cooks spoil the broth, because the current flow through series cells is same in all cell, there will not be a particular one higher than another. There is however, there are some trade off point, i.e. this battery must not be used in system that are power hungry, since it is only three or four cell in series at one time (parellel can suppy higher current remember?). This reason make those third party lo quality cell imposible to be used for this battery, because three or four cell in series make them not enough for the output, it will be very hot and tend to terminate discharge before it able to deliver 100% of it energy. In fact I guess third party lower quality will only output less than 80% of energy that it can store.
   

Picture above: There are one gas gauge(left, almost same price with one piece of Li-ion cell) and two analog front end voltage/current over limit protection. All component is doubled except the gas gauge which in charge communicate with system management.

This is an engineering perfect battery pack, obviously, with some extra cost .

BTP-B2J1

For many years of repairing those obsoleted battery, I can conclude that repairing a rechargable battery is not easy job, if one think it is easy, he is not going to go very far. Likewise all of the others carreer, to go into specialist, you need a lot of hardwork. Why? Because many battery pack is not really designed to be repacked easily.

Recently I have broken the hook of a battery, what is hook? Look at the picture below and you will find out. Who didn't expect a perfect work, but sometime all this mistake just occur. It is unavoidable, even machine can make mistake, not to say us. He say want some more disccount, but I say can not, I have given you both quality work and product, somemore discount I am losing my income, but you are welcome back to me if it broken again, then he accepted my sincere apology.

People is differ from machine, if it occur once, we able to figure out what is the problem, we will make correction. Yesterday I got another one of this unit, a parcel from Sabah. Everyday we wanna become better than yesterday, gonna tell ourself this way.

So this time I do it like this, as the picture above. Protect the fragile hook with some thick paper. This time it is open nicely. I say everything need experiece to make it right, agree?

Want more juice from your battery? No problem, upgrade it, refer to the first picture above, this battery is 4000mAH, get an 5200mAH (usually real capacity is ~5000mAH) at a very reasonable price, and experience a 26% extra run time!

No people report that there are serious side effect by upgrading it capacity yet, perhap it will exhibit different impedence under different frequency or have life span reduced, but overall it give more runtime when user need.

Nokia PC Suite

Recently I am begining to use this software, to reply the SMS from customer. It let us use the SMS service like email. The question come, you have to sit in front of a PC to use it, why don't us use email directly? The problem is the contacts may not be in front of a PC when the interuption is need to be made. If it need urgent action to be taken, email may be too slow for both side to establish real meaningful comunication. But some people just rushing most of the moment of their life, they won't have much patience to wait for email reply.

You know, we can put a lot of precise information into SMS, such as address, number and something else such as a promise, if we use mouth, there are no track of such promise can be found. There is however, SMS will comsume too much time for us to type on the tiny key pad of our hand phone. With the keyboard of PC, now we can type faster. But please note that who always sit in front of PC? Sometime, if any reply is thus meaningless, what is the point of replying? So be patient to waiting for the solution to come out!

Sorry Note

Sometime we recieved this sorry note from courier company. Some company will make resend upon request (usually because their service is more expansive). While Poslaju will required us to collect at the post office ourself.

Unfortunately, my area (TSI) was assigned to a post office which is slightly far but not the closest post office located at Jalan Gombak. While many others courier company which I do not even know where they located, may be quite some distances, if that so, why we still need a courier company if we have to go far to collect the items ourself?(Unless the item come from other negeri)

Hopefully one day will come, where they have many goods to deliver for the same area, where we can have better way to comunicate with post office computer, so that we can decide which day they can deliver our goods.

4650mAH become 5000mAH?

Yesterday I received a Dell D620 battery to realt, from one of our India friend. The battery fail, because one segment of battery seem to have internally disconnected due to it operated exceed the safety boundary.



The battery is label 11.1V 56WHr. Which is a total of 5200mAH LG cells inside. But since I only have 4800mAH (which normally perform in range 4650-4750mAH for the others notebook), so I put in the labeled 4800mAH cells.

Some of Dell battery, allow a maximum of 13.3V charging voltage, which is 4.43V per cell. Although manufacturer claim that cell are allow to be charged at maximum of 4.5V. But generally, to keep the things safe, it is undesired to pushing the limit. In fact, most battery charger limit the charging voltage to 4.2V per cell.

Although the maximum charging voltage is 13.3V, but it don't charge up to 13.3V okay. At approx 13V, the battery will enter pulse charge mode. Dell battery is always using pulse charge mode, so the battery is allow to be fully charged faster at the nearly end of charging (example, last 10% can use up to 1hour if using constant Voltage limiter charge method, you probably only need half an hour to charge it to 100% with ExpressCharge(TM of Dell) system).

So the battery end of charge at 13V, which is 4.33V per cell. Compare to those stop charge at 4.2V, I found something interesting, the cell get a few hundreds mAH (approx 400mAH) extra for the 0.13V extra.

LG(Korea) 2600mAH cells in original battery pack, I thought LG 2600mAH is orange color.

To realt or not to realt?

To realt a battery, it is similar to that you go to restaurant and eat there freshly. We cook it with fresh food! This suppose to be more expensive! Perhaps most people prefer preserved food in tin, because it is very convenient.

But the logic REALT battery should be most expensive just don't apply here, because it is your notebook "eat" it, not yourself. Human's Logic:"Whenever it is not for them self in high degree of need, it should be cheaper!"

So I have to sell it at half the price of new battery of the same grade.

Online Banking Safe?

Nowadays, online banking have turned and become safer than before. I still remember many years ago, a hacker from China come to Malaysia (if I am not wrong), and hack into some personal computer from Singapore to steal the PIN of a specified bank account owner.

There are many way to do this, one is to capture the user keystroke activity by inject a trojan virus into the target computer. Your computer may infected while you are surfing some of the hacker's webpage or webserver which have been hacked by the hacker's trojan or backdoor. Beside, there is certain risk the computer can be affected by using other web service for example instant messenger or e-mail.

Apparently, now our bank give us magnificent service by inform us by phone about all the transaction conducted through internet. The only risk remain is you phone is stolen or the operator of bank want to steal your money. But the rate of this can happen is considered very low.

Obviously the bank have done some great job, I don't know how many operators they need but it gonna be a ton, isn't it?

Why just change channel?

I grab this advertising from the site of Sanyo energy. It is about eneloop, rechargeable battery from Sanyo. They claim that eneloop can subjected to very low energy lose after a long period of storage. This mean that if you are using a normal Ni-MH rechargeable battery, it going exhaust after a few month of storage even though you don't use the battery at all, then you need to recharge the battery again after a few months. Therefore, people prefer to buy one time manganese cells instead of rechargeable cells for their remote controller. It just need to purchase one time a year or every two years.

But if you are using eneloop, it is possible that you don't have to replace the cell permanently. (I am not quite sure that this kind of cell have age factor or not.) As they state in the picture, "Why Just Change Channels When You Can Change The World"? As they are asking you "why just use normal cell while you can use Sanyo cells to reduce environment pollution"? I would say "Why watching TV when you can save energy by no watching"?

People have very less sense about environment pollution. So many irresistible attraction out there. Many people think that they have to do what people do. At this instance, one solution found to reduce environment pollution usually fight with 10 more source of new out coming pollution.

About bq80201

[ALTBATTERY new]Whoever have solution to Sanyo OEM battery pack that utilize bq80201 as fuel gauge are welcome to discuss in this topic here. People pay few ten thousands to get the secret, it just not worth the price for a small company. This may increase the cost of refilling a battery. As far as I know, this technical is not yet available in Malaysia, but a small amount of China man have the secret, I have see refurbished battery from China have the 'Cycle Used' parameter clear to zero on battery that using bq80201 , this mean they know how to communicate with the chip and rewrite the info inside.

Currently, we have non-perfect solution for some old circuit board with bq80201(manufactured before years 2004), but we having problem with those bq80201 newer than 2004 since Texas Instrument have obviously upgraded the hardware layer base on micro-controller bq8020.

Beside, as we see, more and more new fuel gauge manufactured by Texas Instrument with different version of firmware or hardware exist in the market, mostly use by IBM laptop battery, for example, bq8030. Beside bq20847, bq20857 use in Dell laptop also increase the difficulty to refill those battery. We have yet to discover the method to reuse those circuit board.

Almost all Dell with 1-3-5 LED flashing when pressing test button can be clear, but the problem may remain as the board just don't immediately learn a new capacity after the cells is replaced. This mean we have to cycling current through the circuit board before it can be reused.

Currently, we refill those battery by cycling the circuit board with dummy cells, sometime it take more than 10 hours to cycling the board. This is a waste of time, which also mean a waste of money to us. Looking for instrument or method to make the board restore all necessary parameter to default but with less success.

Other older chips for example bq20XX, PSXXX, M3751X, AS3XX, PIC16C63, all can be done.

P/S: Please don't simply copy this article, this article is original from this site, if you want to use it, please copy also link to this page http://alternative-battery.blogspot.com/, thank you.

Discussion

Please feel free to post a question by click the comments link or click me.

Do not ask about info that you need to know urgently. Email: mail.altbattery@gmail.com.

You can publish your after use experience or problem face regarding your current battery or battery refilled by me, which required more expertise and answer.